


Meet the Godfather

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Series: Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds [20]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Family Drama, Female Harry Potter, Humor, Master of Death Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 01:38:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15786312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: When Sirius Black falls through the veil of death, he makes a brief pitstop in Konoha, where neither Lee nor Minato are in any way happy to see him.





	Meet the Godfather

**Author's Note:**

> Obligatory note that this is NOT CANON

There were times when Minato wondered if Lee wouldn’t have been better suited as the yondaime hokage. Most would consider this thought a symptom of madness, Shikaku certainly would and would have half the village joining him. And that was the half that knew Lee personally, the other half, which had yet to make up their mind to revere her as a god of shinobi or else some sort of hell demon probably would quake in terror at the idea of Lee as kage.

 

Still, he wondered how many of them guessed that Lee, indeed, had almost been hokage.

 

Jiraiya-sensei had clearly and firmly said no along with Senju Tsunade, the village would have to be on its last legs for either of them to agree to the hat, Orochimaru had been considered more vigorously but the sandaime hokage knew better than to leave the village in his or else Danzo’s hands, Kushina despite her ambitions didn’t have the ranking to sate the council’s vision of the next village’s leader, and Hatake Sakumo was simply too old.

 

In the end, as far as Minato understood it, the decision had boiled down to him and strangely enough Eru Lee.

 

In terms of raw power Lee would always have him beat, perhaps even in terms of finesse. That was the beauty of Lee, she not only had more chakra than was conceivable, dwarfing even the kyuubi jinchuuriki, but also had the chakra control to go hand in hand with it.

 

And her reputation on the battlefield, even more than Minato’s reputation, preceded her.

 

However, raw power alone wasn’t enough to be a kage, and Minato recognized that as much as any other ninja worth his salt. No, the days where he questioned the hat upon his head, rubbing at his eyes tiredly, understanding all too well the sandaime hokage’s frustrations and exhaustion, was when something truly… bizarre happened. Something that, for whatever reason, was in Lee’s realm of expertise rather than his own.

 

“I’m sorry, Haru,” Minato said, speaking into one of the dozens of active communications seals he’d created ages ago, back when he’d had time for things like creating jutsus, which offered him a direct line of communication with each team on an active mission outside of Konoha’s walls, “Can you run that by me again, did you just say that it’s raining men?”  


Haru’s voice crackled, distorted by the time and distance it took for the sound to travel from one seal to another, but all the same his hesitation and lack of enthusiasm was all too clear, “Well, a man, he looks _English_. He has one of those sticks with him, the one that you, Lee, and well everyone who went to _England_ got forever ago,”

 

Of course, he did, in this kind of situation, just about everything looked English.

 

Minato cursed, rubbing at his eyes again, feeling the weight of the damned hat even as he wasn’t wearing it, “So we have a singular _Englishman_ falling from the skies.”

 

“Yes, that sounds about right,” Haru said, “I’ve got him knocked out here for now, he won’t be going anywhere.”  


Of course, given that Haru’s team was on the edge of Wind meant that if Minato was being prudent then they should be getting back to Konoha as fast as possible. England wasn’t necessarily a secret, being in another dimension it was all but impossible to get to without serious teleportation seals or spacetime jutsus, something that no other village had any expertise in, but it was something that Konoha at least tried to keep under wraps. It was hard to do that when Englishmen were falling from the skies.

 

Meaning, of course, that Minato needed to make a decision regarding this man here and now. He sighed, opening his eyes and staring at the ceiling, even as he noted drily, “I assume we don’t know him.”

 

“You might,” Haru hedged before giving out an audible sigh and explaining, “You know I didn’t spend time in _England_ like you or Lee, and I haven’t exactly made it my business to look through all the files either.”

 

Ah, right, he sometimes forgot that it’d only been two thirds of team seven on that particular adventure. All Haru’s observation said then was that the man didn’t look like an obvious relative of Lee’s or the English nin’s.

 

Of course, neither of them had close living relatives. Lee was the sole survivor of her clan, her only relatives distant cousins on her father’s side, who only shared the barest of features in common with her.

 

The English nin’s situation was even more dramatic. He’d killed his own family, so that he too was the sole surviving heir to his clan, a bastard son of a disowned civilian daughter. But he was more removed from the intermarriages of the clans than Lee’s clan had been, his own clan having long since descended into poverty. As a result, his relatives were so distant they could barely be called relatives at all.

 

This all meant that the man could be anyone at all.

 

“What does he look like?” Minato asked.

 

“Dark hair, dark eyes, a bit mangey, could use a good shower and haircut as well as a shave, average height though on the skinnier side, a little low on chakra but given how he looks I’d say it’s recent depletion, well, chronic depletion, I’d guess he hasn’t had a good couple of years,” Haru mused unhelpfully, that was practically every Englishman, none of them had had a good couple of years, not with the civil war.

 

“Is he wearing any clan symbol that you can see?” that, at the very least, could help narrow it down.

 

A pause, then, “No, not that I can see, in fact, I don’t know much about the _English_ but I’d almost say he’s dressed like a nuke nin.”

 

“How so?”

 

“Dark clothing, worn in, it’s good quality but it’s old, and there’s blank spaces where there could have been a crest but…”

 

Minato finished for him, “But there’s not anymore.”

 

The English nuke nin… Well, they weren’t like Konoha’s nuke nin, it was a crime, yes, but there wasn’t the sense of dishonor and abandonment that went along with it. When Ren had cut ties with his village he had not cut his hair or burned the symbols of his country, England didn’t work like that. There would be no scratched-out headbands worn on their foreheads. No, to remove a crest it would have to be the symbol of their clan, in other words, someone who had abandoned their clan or else been disowned.

 

Well, again, in the wake of the war that could be just about any of them, as families were torn in half as they supported either their defunct government, Dumbledore Albus’ resistance, or else the English nin. However, the English nin guarded his troops jealously and it was not so easy to get out when in his service. That, at least, was easy enough to figure out, “Roll up his left sleeve, is there a seal shaped as a snake on his arm?”

 

Rustling, rolling up the slave, “Nope, no snake.”

 

So, not one of the English nin’s then. Minato briefly considered this, he didn’t necessarily like the English nin’s men but he at least knew most of them, and there were a few among them who could be reasoned with even if they were distasteful and dishonorable bastards. Still, someone not in his service, in all likelihood, had little to no fighting prowess and was unlikely to be a danger to the village. He was likely to be little more than a nuisance, some wayward thing to send off on his way back to England, once, of course, Minato figured out how the hell he managed to get here.

 

If the man was already low on chakra and the had been kept down this long without any sign of a struggle, then T&I could certainly handle him. And if they couldn’t, then by god, Lee herself could even in her current condition.

 

“Alright,” Minato said breathing out as he came to his decision, “I want you and your team to come back and drop him off at T&I, we’ll see who he is, how he got here, and what if anything he wants from us.”

 

Haru quickly bid his farewells and the seal deactivated fading back so that it was the same dull color as all the others. Minato smiled at the rows of them, and said to himself even as he stretched and prepared to start on reviewing the latest batch of academy students and potential jonin senseis, “And to think I wanted this job so desperately.”

 

Yes, maybe Lee had had the right of it, all those years ago. She usually did, even if no one ever seemed to realize it at the time. She had never once talked about becoming hokage, no, that had been for Minato and Minato alone. Still, if anything happened to him, the damned hat was going straight onto her head no matter how much Jiraiya-sensei protested. As it was, even if nothing happened to him, he was more than tempted to announce her the godaime.

 

Even if Naruto didn’t need one parent as kage only to have the hat passed off onto the other.

 

With a sigh he reconsidered the paperwork, it was lighter today, well, could be made lighter, a good chunk of it foisted off onto Shikaku and a larger chunk allocated for Haru whenever he managed to get back from his mission. Perhaps, even with this Englishman problem, he’d be home early tonight.

 

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been home early.

 

Of course, it was just like the unknown English bastard to end up being his honorable godfather-in-law, the obnoxious, and barely tolerable Black Sirius.

 

* * *

 

“No,” Lee exclaimed, well, exclaimed flatly if that was even a notion, even as she stared ahead into the interrogation chamber with an almost despairing expression.

 

“Yes,” Minato gravely corrected her, because it was all too clear just who they were looking at, someone that Minato frankly had no desire to see ever again. Certainly, no desire to see standing on the soil of his own village.

 

“No, you must be joking,” Lee said, turning to him, almost pleading and he wished he could give in and correct her but alas that was not his fate tonight.

 

“No, Lee, I’m afraid I’m quite serious,” Minato said with a sigh, wishing he could have at least taken off his kage robes for this but it seemed he’d be having another late night, one where it was probably best to at least look the part. Well, both him and Lee, which meant that Naruto had been shipped off post haste to Hatake Sakumo so he could once again play honorary grandfather while Minato and his pregnant wife waited to confront the man.

 

“No, Minato,” Lee corrected with an absolutely miserable expression blooming on her pale features, “He’s Sirius.”

 

And indeed, he was, younger looking for whatever reason, a good ten or twelve years younger by the look of him, yet somehow unhealthier for it. Haru hadn’t been exaggerating, the man looked the way he had when he’d only been a year or so out of that death pit the English called a prison. Some of this could be his surroundings and the general menacing air of T&I but the twitching, the English raving, the way his eyes darted about the room were reminiscent of when Lee and Minato had first met the man.

 

“I am too pregnant for this, Minato,” Lee said, shaking her head and raking a single hand through thick red curls, “I mean, what is he even doing here?!”

 

“I am told that he fell from the sky,” Minato responded in a tone that was far more relaxed about this than he truly felt. Because, in what kind of a world, did Minato’s technical godfather-in-law fall from the sky without warning.

“He fell, from the sky, out of nowhere,” Lee repeated, “As in spontaneously, with no great cataclysmic event of warning.”

 

“So, I’m told,” Minato answered with a diminutive shrug of his own.

 

“And you still don’t believe the universe is falling apart?” Lee asked, but at this point it was clearly rhetorical as she sighed, rubbed a hand through her hair again, and said, “Minato, I can’t deal with him, he gets weird, he’s always been so weird…”

 

“I know,” Minato interjected but Lee didn’t seem to care.

 

“He tries to act like he’s my fun loving overprotective uncle, oh and then the trying to seduce me back to _England_ with flying broomsticks and tales about my father the giant asshole, and the shovel speech he gave you, and the way he rants about _quidditch_ and the glory days of _Hogwarts_ and his band of civilian hoodlums that my father was in, what was it called, the pillagers, marauders? Something unbelievably dorky like that. Oh, and remember that time when he tried to claim that he was more proficient in combat than Jiraiya-sensei because he used to be a _wizard_ cop…”

 

“I know, Lee.”

 

“Not to mention he’s an incompetent catspaw for Dumbledore, he doesn’t even have the decency to know he’s a catspaw,” Lee said with a derisive laugh, “He doesn’t really think we’ll be receptive to something like this, does he? I can’t imagine Dumbledore would be that stupid, they wrote us off for murder years ago, the ungrateful bastards.”

 

“I know, Lee,” Minato said more forcefully, this time, apparently with enough force that Lee actually stopped to look at him.

 

“Minato, I don’t want to talk to him,” Lee said, and he understood, oh he understood all too well. Black Sirius and he had never gotten along, for whatever reason, the man had blamed Minato for Lee’s corruption, even more than he blamed Jiraiya-sensei or even the nidaime.   


Like it was somehow Minato’s fault, more than anyone else, that Lee was this irredeemable mercenary with blood on her hand, and that clearly Minato was the only thing keeping her from being the good English girl she deserved to be.

 

That was when he tried to be serious though, the man had a habit of trying very hard to be funny, at all the wrong opportunities. He’d called Minato a hopelessly serious fun sucking nerd on many an occasion, often publicly attempting to humiliate him and then laughing it off and saying that if Minato had any sense of humor at all he’d be laughing it off too, even as the man shamelessly tried to get Lee to join in the joke at Minato’s expense, whatever it happened to be.

 

And every time Lee turned away from him, the man’s smile would fade, and he’d turn to Minato, and he’d scream at him in Konohagakure’s stead for turning his beloved goddaughter into a killing machine separated from the only family she had left.  

 

As if Lee, Ellie as he insisted, belonged with him in England, inside his dusty house filled with death and the screaming of his mother’s portrait.

 

Never mind the fact that he had all but abandoned Lee at infancy and any right to the title of godfather for the sake of a vengeance he didn’t even have the competence to fulfil.

 

Minato sighed, closed his eyes momentarily, and then reopened them to study Sirius Black even as the man struggled in his bonds, loudly demanding in English to see whoever was in charge here.

 

“I know, but someone has to, Lee, and if it’s you, well, maybe he’ll be more cooperative,” Minato said with a smile, although, likely the man would throw a fit when he realized that Minato had not only married Lee but had also had the gall to get her pregnant not once but twice now.

 

Likely he’d always envisioned Lee marrying some English wizard, Weasley Ron or one of his upstanding brothers, having gaggles of red headed English children as if Lee would ever have settled for something like…

 

He breathed out, calming himself, he hated handing Black that kind of information for free, before Minato and Lee had even settled the papers for their marriage on the English side, but perhaps rubbing salt in that wound could do Minato some good. At the very least, it’d be nice to see Black squirming in discomfort for once.

 

Lee gave him a look, at once both pleading and warning, as she said, “You can’t blame me for whatever happens in there.”  


“I will blame you if he dies,” Minato put in bluntly before adding drily, “Try not to hospitalize him.”

 

“I can’t make that kind of a promise.”

 

Minato smiled, a truer smile as his eyes drifted to her stomach then back up, “You shouldn’t be hospitalizing anyone in your condition, ninjutsu or not. Either way, I’m coming in with you, and if the gods are kind, he’ll be out and back in _England_ before midnight.”

 

“Just watch,” Lee grumbled as she stood, one hand on her swelling stomach as she headed for the door, waiting for Minato to stand and join her as they made their way towards the room, “He’s going to be living at our house and corrupting our child.”

 

Over Minato’s rotting carcass.

 

Minato smiled thinly, politely, even as he opened the door and Black Sirius looked up at him with those wild dark eyes that Minato hated so very much, “Nonsense, we’ll dump him on the hospitable nidaime long before that point.”

 

Minato pulled out a chair for Lee then sat in one himself sighing before he began, “ _Mr. Black, it’s been some time, hasn’t it? I would welcome you to_ Konohagakure _but I was not expecting your arrival._ ”

 

At the sight of Minato the man grew silent, his eyes narrowed, his lips pressed together in a grim look of determination even as he stilled, there was a great overwhelming fear in him, in every inch of him, but nonetheless his voice was even as he spoke, “ _You, who are you people and how do you know my name?_ ”

 

His eyes then turned to Lee, stopped, blinked, and slowly, almost desperately, he asked, “ _Lily?_ ”

 

Lee turned to look at Minato with raised eyebrows, then back to Sirius who was beginning to have tears gather at the corner of his eyes, then back to Minato as she noted, “This is weirder than usual, even for him.”

 

The man was shaking his head back and forth now, almost in desperation as words wrenched from his throat, “ _Lily I… I am so sorry, you have to know how sorry I am and that I tried… I tried to find Peter and I know, I know I should have stayed with Harry, but I wasn’t thinking and I couldn’t let Peter get away. Please, Lily, you know I had to kill that two-faced son of a bitch who called himself our friend. And I didn’t know, alright?! I didn’t know where they’d put Harry, I wasn’t thinking, I thought I’d come back and I didn’t think they’d think it was me and that I’d… I tried so hard, Lily, and I know that will never be enough and…_ ”

 

He stopped, a sob wrenching from him, and then he seemed to look at her again, still shaking his head this time in awed disbelief, “ _But you’re… You’re dead Lily, you’re dead, but Merlin you look just like her and…_ ”

 

“ _Nope, it’s Lee, actually,_ ” Lee corrected with a rather nonplussed expression, then with a sigh and a cringe, added, “ _You know, Ellie… You sometimes call me Prongslet._ ”

 

The man blinked, looking utterly baffled, as if he had no idea what in the hell Lee was talking about. Lee’s frown, in turn, became a bit more pronounced at this.

 

“ _Your unofficial goddaughter?_ ” Lee prompted with a hand motion as if to jog his memory.

 

“ _Goddaughter?_ ”

 

“ _Unofficial, well, you think it’s official, but you’re a_ nuke nin _with all of the English soul sucking_ hunter nin _after your ass. So even for the_ English _it’s not official,_ ” Lee had always been very clear on this point, much to Black’s constant dismay.

 

He shook his head slowly that grim wary look returning as he seemed to remember just where he was and his own suppressed chakra, “ _No, I don’t have a goddaughter. Who are you people? What do you want with me? What have you done to me?!_ ”

 

Minato and Lee exchanged another glance. It was Lee, who, bluntly as ever, stated the apparent facts, “Minato, he’s finally lost his shit.”

 

“Well…”

 

“I mean, he’s been losing it for years, that _gulag_ they stuffed him into for twelve years did nothing for him, I’ll tell you that much, but he’s forgotten everything,” Lee paused, considered this, “Does this mean I can go home?”

 

Minato grimaced, just repressing the urge to snap back and say if he wasn’t going home then she wasn’t either even if she was somehow off the hook, and instead addressed Black, “ _I’m afraid, Mr. Black, that we seem to be having some sort of misunderstanding._ ”

 

“ _Misunderstanding?! Is that what you bastards call…_ ”

 

Minato smoothly talked over him, “ _You are currently being held in detention in the Village Hidden in the Leaves after having fallen through your own dimension into ours seemingly without cause. Something that concerns us quite greatly, as our most recent extradimensional guests did not come bearing gifts so to speak._ ”

Sirius snorted at this, as if Minato was making a joke, although to him it very well could be. To Minato, to Konoha itself, Madara, the Zetsus, and Kaguya had shown that threat to be very real and very pressing. One Minato would never turn a blind eye to, even if the cracks in time and space were taken advantage of by someone like Black Sirius.

Minato continued as if Sirius hadn’t moved at all, “ _I am the fourth and current shadow of fire, you can think of me as a rough equivalent to your minister of magic, and this is my wife Lee Eru who you recently knew as Eleanor Lily Potter, daughter of James and Lily Potter and head of the Potter clan, as well as your own goddaughter._ ”

 

“ _I don’t have a goddaughter!_ ” The man shouted, practically spitting, “ _There isn’t a… Ellie Potter or whatever you call her. I have a godson, Harry, and if you had any good in your soul then you’d…_ ”

 

Minato spoke over him, “ _As for what we’ve done to you, we’ve made use of what you call runes to suppress your magic, prevent you from teleporting, reading minds, concealing your thoughts, and whatever other magical parlor tricks you have up your sleeve without a wand at your disposal._ ”

 

To further show this, Minato drew out the man’s wand from a storage seal in one of the scrolls on his waist, allowed him to see it, before stowing it away once again and out of his sight and reach.

 

“ _You…_ ” the man started, his face growing red in rage and despair at his own impotence as he was tied to this chair and wandless.

 

Minato held up a hand in slight protest, eyes burning as he continued, as he gave his final hook, “ _However, we don’t want you here anymore than you want to be here. If you cooperate with us we’ll send you right back to where you came from, back to your… godson and all the rest of_ England _._ ”

 

Lee said nothing to this one way or the other, her expression, for that matter, did not even flicker.

 

The man in question licked his lips, once, then twice, then asked, “ _And why would I trust someone whose taken my wand, sealed off my magic, and tied me to a chair?_ ”

 

“ _Because it’s not about trust,_ ” Minato said with a shrug, “ _Trust us, don’t trust us, it changes nothing. If we wanted to kill you we would have done it, if we ask for a favor then you’re unlikely to perform it, we ask you a few questions you’re indifferent to answering, well, what difference does it make to you? If you don’t you’ll be stuck here for God knows how long, if you do, well, we’ll stab you in the back or we’ll send you back home.”_

 

“ _Right_ ,” Sirius answered, his disbelief evident in one syllable alone, “ _I want an unbreakable oath, I answer your questions, only answer your questions nothing else, and you send me back home, without injury!_ ”

 

Lee held out her hand towards him, took his in hers, and said, “ _I, Lee Eru, on behalf of_ Konohagakure _, do promise that in the case that Sirius Black honestly answers all questions we have for him that we will try to the best of our abilities with all our resources to send him back to his home in the same condition he came to us in._ ”

 

There was a flash of blinding light, Minato flinching and shielding his eyes, but it seemed good enough for Sirius Black as he nodded, pulled his hand back, and asked, “ _So, what do you want to know?_ ”

 

* * *

 

The story itself was strangely familiar yet different enough at the edges that Minato would have suspected genjutsu, except, the English implementations of genjutsu left different signs than versions of the elemental nations, and it would mean whoever had done it would have to be a master on par with someone wielding the sharingan.

 

A thought Minato wasn’t at all comfortable with.

 

The man reported that he was Black Sirius, that yes he had been in Azkaban for twelve years after his wrongful arrest for the murder of Potter James and Lily, that he had escaped upon seeing a picture of Pettigrew Peter in the form of a rat upon Weasley Ronald’s shoulder. However, the man claimed that it was a godson, Potter Harry, and not a goddaughter.

 

More, Harry had grown up in England, had gone to Hogwarts and even befriended Weasley Ronald as well as Granger Hermione. Instead of immigrating to Konoha as Lee had done the boy, this alternate version of Lee, had stayed with the Dursleys in truly repressive conditions, never meeting his godfather until he was thirteen.

 

And unlike Lee, Harry had been very receptive to having a godfather, in fact, it seemed like Black Sirius was the only person willing to play the role of any true parental figure in his life, as sad a statement as that was. However, due to certain security concerns regarding the English nin (who, in this version, had never left England at all in Lee’s head but had instead been skulking in the form of a demented chakra wraith until he managed to build himself a body) as well as Sirius’ own doubts regarding his ability to look after a child, Harry had continued to live with his biological civilian aunt and uncle.

 

The English desperately suppressed the news of Voldemort’s return instead of preparing for civil war, Harry began to have visions from Voldemort’s perspective, successfully thwarting an attack on the Weasley patriarch, however the English nin had caught onto this and likely sent Harry hurtling into a trap, or, at least, so Sirius thought. Because Harry and his friends had raided the department of mysteries, the Death Eaters soon coming after them, and then Sirius and the Order coming after them.

 

Until, that was, Black Sirius had been pushed through the veil of death.

 

And the rest, as they said, was history.

 

“ _And I’m telling you, I don’t know how it works, no one does, no one who goes into the veil… No one comes back, you get it. It’s… It’s a complete mystery_ ,” Sirius shook his head wearily, “ _But you understand that I have to… I have to go back, for Harry, I have to…_ ”

 

Lee considered him slowly, putting him together piece by piece, and then said those words that Minato had been thinking but dreading to say out loud, “ _I’m not sure I can get you back._ ”

 

“ _What but you said…_ ”

 

“ _I can get you to an England, but our England is very different from yours. For one thing it’s 2005 there, long past your 1996, and for another… It already has one Sirius Black, one with a goddaughter instead of a godson._ ”

 

He shook his head, laughed, “ _What are you…_ ”

 

“ _Either, your memories have been manipulated by an expert or else you’re from a parallel dimension. A different England than the one we’re familiar with,_ ” Minato elaborated for his wife.

 

“ _A parallel dimension, you mean, like she’s… She’s Harry, I mean, girl Harry?_ ”

 

Sure, if he wanted to call Lee that, it wasn’t worse than Ellie. The man started laughing, as if this was the best joke he’d heard in years, breaking down into utter helpless hysterics. He then caught himself and looked at her again, almost in desperation, “ _Merlin, you know, I see him in you. I mean, I see James and Lily but… I see Harry in you too. You look just like your mum._ ”

 

Then, pleading, he said, “ _Just… Please tell me you’ll get me home._ ”

 

“ _I’ll still try, I promised but… I’ll have to think about how to do this, this could go… badly, if I’m not careful,_ ” Lee said with a pronounced frown.

 

“How bad is badly?” Minato asked under his breath.

 

“Oh, it could destroy reality as we know it,” Lee answered calmly before addressing Sirius again, “ _We’ll get you out of these ropes and give you lodging, you give us an unbreakable oath to not interfere with or harm the village and you can have those seals removed and your_ jutsu _stick back._ ”

 

“ _Gee, thanks, you lot are paranoid bastards, aren’t you? Moody would fit right in here…_ ” the man muttered even as Lee untied the ropes, took his hand, and waited as he swore the oath to the village for his temporary stay.

 

Minato for his own part had to agree, of all the Englishmen he’d met, Moody really had been the one he’d connected with the most. The man had quite the healthy dosage of paranoia, it was probably what had kept him alive so long.

 

Sirius shook himself out, stretching, that stupid grin on his face, “ _Oh, yeah, this is much better._ ”

 

And even though Minato didn’t know this Black Sirius, this godfather of Potter Harry, he still hated him.

 

As if reading his mind, Lee asked, “We’re still dumping him on the nidaime, right?”

 

“Oh, without a doubt,” and there was nothing the man could do about it either since Minato had the goddamn hat.

 

* * *

 

It took three days for Senju Tobirama to break.

 

Minato, spending one of the few days he could at home with the toddling Naruto resting on his hip, opened the door to see the man looking like one who had long since crossed his threshold of tolerance. Without a word of greeting, the nidaime stepped in and noted gravely, “They’re bonding.”

 

“What?” Minato asked.

 

“My brother and Lee’s _English_ godfather are bonding,” he repeated, not even sparing a glance for Minato or Naruto who was now reaching out for the nidaime with chubby pale little hands. Only, Minato turned in horror as the door opened again, and a somewhat more sheepish looking Black Sirius stepped in.

 

“No,” Minato said, “No, you can’t…”

 

“You will not threaten me with that hat!” Tobirama barked out, now causing Naruto to retreat into Minato’s clothing and begin to sniffle, “I have put up with this man for three days now and I refuse to do it any longer. He’s your in-law, he’s your problem!”

 

Minato hoisted Naruto up further, attempting to reassure her even as he muttered, “He is hardly my in-law.”

 

“Either way, you don’t seem to be busy today, and you clearly have time to babysit,” Tobirama said only to turn back towards the door at record speed and shove Black Sirius out of his way.

 

“Not grown men!” Minato cried out, but the man was already gone, likely halfway to the Senju compound at this point. Leaving Minato, Naruto, and Sirius behind.

 

“ _So, this is your and Harry’s daughter then? I mean, girl Harry, whatever her name is_ ,” Sirius asked, clearly trying to be polite, or at least halfway charming, but failing miserably as he tried to get a look at Naruto’s face, clearly looking for similarities to his old friends, or Lee, or even his own godson.

 

“Lee,” Minato corrected with a sigh.

 

As if summoned by that alone Lee walked in, stopped dead at the sight of Sirius and turned an accusing gaze to Minato.

 

“You try reasoning with the nidaime,” Minato said and Lee looked back with a sigh.

 

“If I was any less pregnant,” Lee said slowly, “…Is there anyone else we can dump him on?”

 

“ _Oh, hey, Harr… Lee, how’s it…_ ” Sirius started only for Lee to talk over him as she looked in desperation towards Minato.

 

“Oh god, he’s trying to bond with me,” Lee stated with a shudder, “We must distract him.”

 

Minato heartily agreed, “ _So, Sirius, how do you feel about ramen? Lee and I will just drop Naruto off and then we’ll go get some ramen._ ”

 

Sirius wasn’t given much of a chance to give an opinion as Minato hastily dropped Naruto off, with profuse apologizing to his toddler daughter, to the only available babysitter that day which happened to be Obito for whatever reason (but at least it wasn’t Kakashi), and then dragged the man to Konoha’s famed ramen stand.

 

“ _So, any progress, I mean, on my whole thing?_ ” Sirius asked, finally, Minato looked over towards Lee.

 

She hummed noncommittally as she dug into her own ramen, “ _Maybe, getting you to our England would be easier, but I might be able to push you through to yours. Maybe, it will be… complicated, if you want to play it safe._ ”

 

She didn’t mention that part of the trouble was that it was a one-way trip, if he ended up in the wrong place, Lee might have no way of knowing, and then he’d be stuck there with no way of getting out.

 

“ _Any timeline for that?_ ” Sirius asked.

 

“ _Not pregnant is better,_ ” Lee stated with her mouth full.

 

“ _Right, okay, so a few months… A few months, Merlin I hope he’s okay…_ ” the man swallowed, sighed, then looked back over at Lee and Minato, dissecting them with eyes alone and asked, “ _So, Lee, why are you here anyways? And married too, wow, wouldn’t have thought that would happen. I mean, not that I thought I had a goddaughter but…_ ”

 

“ _Been here since I was four, unlike your Harry, I saw no reason to stay in England,_ ” Lee answered rather stiffly, “ _As for Minato and I, we’ve been married for a few years now, right around the time Minato got the hat._ ”

 

“ _Never thought I’d see Harry, or well, you, I guess, with someone so serious. Merlin, kid, you need to lighten up,_ ” Sirius said whacking Minato on the back, how was it, that even a Sirius that didn’t know him, still had the same aggravating qualities.

 

Minato offered him a thin smile back as he straightened.

 

“ _So, you have a kid then the little girl, what’s her name? Naruto? Not very English, is it?_ ” Sirius asked.

 

“ _No, it’s from our sensei’s first book, actually_ ,” Minato said, the only book of Jiraiya’s that Minato actually liked for that matter. Minato wished he’d go back to writing that sort of thing but he’d gotten hooked on the porn and was unlikely to ever come back from it.

 

“ _Right, hey, since I’m going to be here a couple months at least, maybe I could come over and see her sometime. I mean, I never got to see much of Harry growing up and…_ ”

 

Lee immediately cut him off, “ _No, no, that will not be happening._ ”

 

She then turned to look at him rather flatly, in that manner she always used when she was more than done with any situation, “ _Look, Sirius, I don’t like you, I have never liked you, and you have never been anything remotely approaching a father figure to me and you never will be._ ”

 

And even though this Sirius barely knew her, had no right to knowing her, something in him still seemed to crumple at her words.

 

He then said, slowly, “ _Sometimes I wonder if Harry thinks the same thing. I… I haven’t been around much, to be honest. And he wants someone so badly that I think he’s just… settling for me, and later, later he’ll look back and realize…_ ”

 

Lee sighed rubbed a hand over her face, “ _Look, I’ll get you back as soon as I can, and I’m sure that you and Harry are fine._ ”

 

She then expanded with a hand gesture, “ _Harry, after all, seems like a somewhat more… brain damaged version of me and clearly worships the ground you walk on. For him, you probably are the closest thing he has to a father and or uncle. So… I’m sure it’s totally cool._ ”

 

Totally cool wasn’t how Minato would have phrased it but he supposed it was better than nothing. As for him, he couldn’t quite picture this male Lee, this brother of hers, who had stayed in England and attached himself to Black Sirius in desperation… It was hard to think of Lee belonging in that kind of a world.

 

Perhaps that was what irked Minato so much about this man, not so much who he was, but what he represented, that terrifying possibility of a world in which Minato and Lee had never met.

 

“ _I think…. I think I want to risk it_ ,” Sirius said slowly.

 

“ _Risk what?_ ”

 

Sirius continued, suddenly filled with determination, “ _I want you to send me back, now, even if it doesn’t work. I… I have to be there for him, I can’t waste anymore time here or anywhere else. I’ve done too much of that already._ ”

 

Lee’s eyebrows raised, “ _You do understand that you might end up anywhere, don’t you?_ ”

 

“ _If you’re Harry, girl Harry anyways, then I trust you. You’ll get me home_ ,” and he seemed so sure, he seemed to have such faith in her solely because she was James and Lily’s daughter, daughter of a James an Lily he didn’t even know.

 

Lee nodded slowly and then, with an overwhelming amount of chakra, pushed him through the gates of their own dimension and into another. For a moment they watched the empty place where he had been before, each of them wondering, if he truly had made it back to his own England.

 

For his sake, and for the Lee that was Harry, Minato hoped so.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a bit of a strange one that relies on things I have in the back of my head but are not written down yet. Just to keep in mind this is how Minato and Lee feel about Sirius for a variety of reasons versus others in the village who probably jive better with him. Yes, anyways, written for a side fic that I believe asked for Sirius falling through the veil into Konoha.
> 
> Thanks for reading, comments, kudos, and bookmarks are greatly appreciated.


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